The semiconductors currently used in night and fog vision technologies absorb light at a rate of just 7.7 percent, which means a larger amount of the material is necessary to power infrared vision.
New research out of Australia promises to dramatically reduce the price of infrared technologies like night vision goggles.
Scientists at the University of Sydney recently demonstrated a semiconductor capable of a nearly 99 percent light absorption rate. The semiconductor is just a few hundred atoms thick and could power a range of infrared devices.

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The semiconductors currently used in night and fog vision technologies absorb light at a rate of just 7.7 percent, which means a larger amount of the material is necessary to power infrared vision.
New research out of Australia promises to dramatically reduce the price of infrared technologies like night vision goggles.
Scientists at the University of Sydney recently demonstrated a semiconductor capable of a nearly 99 percent light absorption rate. The semiconductor is just a few hundred atoms thick and could power a range of infrared devices.

A read through the published article: https://www.osapublishing.org/optica/abstract.cfm?uri=optica-3-6-556
and it becomes clear this 'breakthrough' while no doubt having some niche usefulness, has the usually expected limitations. Narrow bandwidth, polarization sensitivity, and (less clear) poor performance away from normal incidence. All or nearly all metamaterial/nanostructured optics is just an adaptation of techniques long used in antenna/antenna-array and microwave filter design principles.

There is always some trade-off between gain (absorption counts as 'gain' here) and bandwidth. Really clever designs achieve a large gain-bandwidth product insensitive to both polarization and incidence angle. (Substitute reflectance or transmittance or absorptance for gain depending on the parameter of interest)
'Traditional' multi-layer films are afaik still very much king there. Since the difference in 'bulk' for a typical night-vision goggle between a film that is nm thick vs um thick is infinitesimal, seems the claimed advantages there is pure PR hype. Something expected when competition for research grants is strong.